I ran through a number of ideas while trying to come up for this week’s Wet Wednesday cocktail for the Steve Dahl Show. I have an email box full of pitches for Halloween drinks, but none of them felt right for the show. Then it hit me. Blood & Sand.

The Blood & Sand is a classic cocktail, but it’s criminally underpoured. I’m not sure if it’s because people don’t think of scotch when it comes to cocktails, because it’s named after a movie no one’s heard of, or if it’s because the ingredients don’t sound like they go together. In any case, one sip and those all go out the window.

I found the recipe in five different cocktail books on my shelves, and four of the five ratios were different. I tried them all, and the original The Savoy Cocktail Book recipe ended up being my favorite. The only change I made was to use blood orange juice instead of normal OJ. I don’t know if it was the lower acidity or something else, but it struck just the right chord. Part of that might be due to using Cherry Heering, which is dry and tart, so it didn’t need that big citrus kick to balance.

In any case, the one variation that I would consider from the recipe below would be to add more scotch. There’s always room for more scotch!

East London mixologist Missy Flynn has created four cocktails for the new Christmas menu at All Bar One UK, 56 venues, and ‘Baileys Blush’ is the drink we didn’t realise we needed in our Instagram feed until now. It’s made with the original Irish Cream liqueur, milk, cream, and cherry heering. Then it’s garnished with edible glitter, just in case you want to go all out with KiraKira (and we don’t need an excuse, NGL).